NIIT Technologies forays into US health care segment with acquisition of Preferr EHR

NIIT Technologies Limited, a leading IT solutions organization has acquired an electronic health records and referral management platform to initiate its foray into the lucrative health care segment in the US. The platform called "Preferr" (Patient Referral System)" enables seamless collaboration between all providers namely physicians, hospitals, diagnostic facilities, and laboratories.

“The platform is an innovative SaaS-based IP that collaborates between various care entities by enhancing the portability, re-usability, integrity and history of health records”

The US Government through American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 (ARRA), has mandated physicians to focus on providing better patient care through electronic health record sharing amongst hospitals and other specialists. "Preferr" improves continuity and quality of care for the patient and improves operational efficiencies for all practices.

"The acquisition of "Preferr" is a major initiative to provide solutions in health care IT," said Mr. Lalit Dhingra, President, NIIT Technologies Inc. "The platform enables providers to meet federal guidelines for Electronics Health Record meaningful use criteria and will enable NIIT to pursue this space and mark its presence within the health care arena," added Mr. Dhingra

NIIT Technologies' Healthcare Division set up in Orlando will be creating high-value jobs to manage and deploy its IT-based products and services. "Preferr," was pioneered in Clermont by homegrown company Visions@Work, whose founder, Pranam Ben, is now Head of NIIT Technologies' Healthcare Division. In the U.S., "Preferr" is already in use by a number of health care providers in Central Florida to manage patient referrals and information exchange to physicians, hospitals, outpatient facilities and laboratories.

"The platform is an innovative SaaS-based IP that collaborates between various care entities by enhancing the portability, re-usability, integrity and history of health records," said Pranam Ben, Head Healthcare Division, NIIT Technologies Inc. "Being a SaaS-based platform it operates on the cloud whereby in addition to ease in collaboration, it is a green-IT initiative that will help health care providers reduce their carbon footprint," he added.